Labour Lawmakers Boost Pressure on Corbyn to Seek Softer Brexit

(Bloomberg) -- U.K. Labour Party lawmakers stepped up their push for leader Jeremy Corbyn to commit to closer ties with the European Union after Brexit, including staying in the bloc’s customs union, an issue that has riven Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government.

“The customs union is particularly important,” Yvette Cooper, a Labour lawmaker and head of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, said Sunday in an interview on Sky News, adding that there’s support in parliament for staying in the union. “The idea that you would impose customs checks on our manufacturers, I think will cause big problems.”

Labour is trying to retain the support of pro-European voters without repelling backers of Brexit who predominate in the party’s constituencies, especially in northern England. Corbyn has said that while his party wouldn’t keep Britain in the customs union, it would want some form of an accord with the EU.

But just as in May’s government, the pressure is building on him to clarify what his “jobs first” Brexit means as U.K.-EU negotiations reach a critical juncture.

Corbyn will be confronted this week by some members in his shadow cabinet who want him to back remaining in the single market and customs union, the Observer newspaper reported on Sunday.

While the desire to manage immigration into the U.K. makes it difficult to remain in the single market, keeping “some sort of customs union” is vital to resolve border issues in Ireland and to guarantee tariff-free trade, Labour’s foreign policy spokesman Emily Thornberry said on ITV’s “Peston on Sunday.”

Jobs, Economy

“We have to have a deal that looks after jobs and looks after the economy first and foremost,” she said. “Nobody voted to be poorer and nobody voted to lose their job.”

Labour lawmaker Jess Phillips said on the same program that the party should push to stay in both the EU single market and customs union, and that immigration issues could be resolved in both systems.

May, for her part, has ruled out remaining in “the” customs union or even “a” customs union amid mounting pressure from Tory lawmakers who want a clean break. But that stance has left the door open for the anti-Brexit wing of the Conservative Party to adopt more aggressive tactics, including cooperation with like-minded Labour lawmakers.

A group of Conservative and Labour lawmakers has produced an amendment that would force May to try to keep Britain in the customs union. The stance of the broader Labour Party is critical for the measure to winning overall parliamentary backing.

On Sunday, it wasn’t only Labour lawmakers making the argument for remaining close to the EU. Scotland’s Conservative Party leader, Ruth Davidson, who was vocal in the campaign against Brexit, said the U.K. would inevitably remain closely aligned with the EU “because we helped write the regulations.”

“We’ve been a member for so long, actually what our consumers want and what French consumers want aren’t that far apart,” Davidson said on “Peston on Sunday.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Stuart Biggs in London at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Ross Larsen

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